13 Facts About Sushruta Samhita

Sushruta Samhita is an ancient Sanskrit text on medicine and surgery, and one of the most important such treatises on this subject to survive from the ancient world.

Rao in 1985 suggested that the original layer to the Sushruta Samhita was composed in 1st millennium BCE by "elder Sushruta" consisting of five books and 120 chapters, which was redacted and expanded with Uttara-tantra as the last layer of text in 1st millennium CE, bringing the text size to six books and 184 chapters.

The earliest known mentions of the name Sushruta firmly associated with the tradition of the Susrutasamhita is in the Bower Manuscript, where Sushruta is listed as one of the ten sages residing in the Himalayas.

For example, both Caraka and Sushruta Samhita recommend Dhupana in some cases, the use of cauterization with fire and alkali in a class of treatments, and the letting out of blood as the first step in treatment of wounds.

In general, states Zysk, Buddhist medical texts are closer to Sushruta than to Caraka, and in his study suggests that the Sushruta Samhita probably underwent a "Hinduization process" around the end of 1st millennium BCE and the early centuries of the common era after the Hindu orthodox identity had formed.

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Sushruta Samhita is reverentially held in Hindu tradition to be a descendant of Dhanvantari, the mythical god of medicine, or as one who received the knowledge from a discourse from Dhanvantari in Varanasi.

Sushruta Samhita is among the most important ancient medical treatises.

Sushruta and Charaka texts differ in one major aspect, with Sushruta Samhita providing the foundation of surgery, while Charaka Samhita being primarily a foundation of medicine.

The discussion shows that the Indian tradition nurtured diversity of thought, with Sushruta Samhita school reaching its own conclusions and differing from the Atreya-Caraka tradition.

The differences in the count of bones in the two schools is partly because Charaka Sushruta Samhita includes thirty two teeth sockets in its count, and their difference of opinions on how and when to count a cartilage as bone.

Sushruta Samhita is best known for its approach and discussions of surgery.

Sushruta Samhita's treatise provides the first written record of a cheek flap rhinoplasty, a technique still used today to reconstruct a nose.

The first complete English translation of the Sushruta Samhita was by Kaviraj Kunjalal Bhishagratna, who published it in three volumes between 1907 and 1916.